In a networking environment, an application executing on one node may need to communicate with an application executing on a second node on the network. The first and second nodes can be considered as endpoints for the communication. For example the first node may acquire data from the second node to perform a transaction, or the first node may send data to the second node to post a transaction. To complicate matters, the first node and second node may use different message formats or application layer protocols.
Usually it is not practical or even possible to design or update an application so that the application can converse with other applications using all possible message formats and application layer protocols. Some message formats and application layer protocols may be proprietary and not publicly disclosed. Some message formats and application layer protocols may be relatively new and obscure. Some message formats and application layer protocols may be so old that they are generally considered obsolete. Moreover, some common protocols may not be optimized for message transport.
One or more network data processing elements (“network elements”) can be employed to facilitate communications between the endpoints. For example a network element coupled to the first node can convert data for communicating with the second node. Similarly, a network element can be coupled to the second node to facilitate communication with the first node. Additional network elements can be employed to perform common utility functions between the endpoints, such as message routing, logging and event capture. For example, network elements can correspond to bladelets and adapters described in Cisco's Application Oriented Network Systems (AONS), available from Cisco Systems, Inc., 170 West Tasman Drive, San Jose, Calif.; where bladelets are functional blocks that are applied to packet streams and adapters are protocol adapters for ingress and egress traffic streams at the ends of the network.